Skies on Fire
by Krogasms
Summary: Follows ME1-ME3. FemShepxKaidan that leads to FemShepxGarrus. Possibly AU.
1. Eden Prime

**Author's Note: I don't own Mass Effect. If I did, I would be a rich and amazing person. Some of the dialogue is taken from the game, some is my own adaptation or addition to it. Started in light of Mass Effect 3 coming out soon. I should be working on my Mass Effect role play forum, but I've had this idea for a while and finally decided to get it written. **

**FemShepxKaidan with future FemShepxGarrus. I'm feeling...ballsy. **

Eden Prime

The Citadel was so much different than New York City. Granted, the Commander saw perhaps the worst of it during her childhood, there was something spectacular about it—its clean environment, even in the Wards, the programmed sky that gave its organic inhabitants an artificial but comforting sense of homeliness. She had only been there once before, during shore leave with some other curious Alliances soldiers several years back, but something told her she'd be seeing it again. Perhaps it was the Council Spectre milling around the Normandy that tipped her off.

Nihlus had certainly been a hot topic amongst the crew. When Shepard wasn't running into him at every corner, he filled the conversations on the ship, even becoming a higher priority than gossiping about the latest plot on Extranet dramas. The fact hadn't changed by the time she arrived on the flight deck, sparing a glance at the turian as they passed.

"I hate that guy," she heard Joker say as she approached the two officers. She positioned herself silently behind the pilot's chair, looking between the consoles and out the window, half listening to the men's conversation.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment, soo... you hate him," Kaidan replied, and she could practically hear him quirking a brow in disbelief.

"Remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's 'good'. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead-so that's incredible. Besides, Spectres are trouble, I don't like having him on board. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid," Kaidan replied simply.

A smile crept subtly onto the Commander's lips.

"The council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment," the Staff Lieutenant added, glancing at the man sitting next to him.

Joker was still set on his opinion, though. "Yeah, that is the official story, but only an idiot believes the official story," he quipped.

"Joker! Status report!" Shepard glanced up as Captain Anderson's voice rang through the comm terminal.

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid."

Anderson's approval could be heard in his voice. "Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."

Shepard looked away from the window, back at the men seated in front of her.

"Aye aye, Captain. Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's already here, Lieutenant." Whatever approval they could hear in the Captain's voice was gone, and he sounded more exacerbated than happy. "Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing," he continued before cutting the line. Shepard merely shook her head: she had been stationed on the Normandy for a while, and it was pretty clear how their relationship worked. Joker, dry and often tactless, nearly always heard a sort of patronizing tone from their Captain, one of restrained annoyance.

"Did you get that, Commander?"

"Doesn't sound too pleased," she commented idly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"Oh please, the Captain always sounds like he's in a bad mood."

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," Kaidan replied with a smirk, as if he had been reading her thoughts.

Shepard snickered a little before she finally left for the comm room, leaving the two to continue their idle conversation in peace. She was caught off guard, though, when she entered the comm room to find only Nihlus waiting for her. It would be a lie to say Shepard was afraid of the Spectre, but he certainly had a presence about him, dark plates with sharply contrasting white clan tattoos, a no-nonsense, focus on the mission attitude. From what she'd heard as a teen, the perfect turian soldier-minus his Spectre status. That being said, her guard was right back up as he greeted her, and her suspicions were not abated as he began talking about their destination, Eden Prime, as if trying to provoke a specific reaction out of her, what she couldn't quite put her finger on. He spoke of danger, of humanity's position as new members of a galactic population, and even challenged the Alliance's role in humanity's new home. She didn't even have a chance to question it before the door slid open and Anderson joined the pair.

Shepard turned to him, arms still crossed over her chest. If anyone would be able to give her answers, it was the Captain.

"I think it's about time we told the Commander what's really going on." She glanced back at Nihlus expectantly.

"This mission is more than a simple shakedown run."

How incredibly unhelpful. "Yeah, I kind of got the gist of that," she replied a little tersely. If it bothered the Spectre he didn't show it.

"We're making a covert pickup on Eden Prime. That's why we needed the stealth systems operational," Anderson explained. Shepard merely nodded; although she was known for challenging authority figures in the past, Anderson was a different sort of superior. She knew anything he didn't tell her was because he hadn't been told himself, not because he was keeping things from her like so many of her other commanding officers.

"What's the payload, Captain?"

"This comes down from the top, Commander. The information is on a strictly need-to-know basis. A research team on the planet unearthed some kind of beacon during an excavation. It was Prothean."

Shepard blinked, her eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. "I thought the Protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago."  
>"Their legacy still remains. The mass relays, the Citadel, our ship drives—it's all based on Prothean technology," Nihlus explained, and Shepard suddenly felt like a food. <em>'Of course, just because they disappeared doesn't mean every trace of their existence disappeared with them.' <em>

"Can you tell me any more about it?"

"This is big, Shepard. The last time humanity made a discover like this, it jumped our technology forward two hundred years. But Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander," Nihlus added. "This discovery could affect every species in Council space."

_Obviously._

"Then it's a good thing we have the Council in on this. They've been around a lot long than humanity—they're bound to know much more about this beacon than any of us."  
>Anderson nodded in agreement, and Nihlus' face bore a look of surprise—and mild approval.<p>

"You humans don't have the best reputation. Some species see you as selfish, too unpredictable, too independent. Even dangerous."

"He's right. Sharing this discovery will not only improve our own technology, it would improve humanity's relationship with all of the council races."

Shepard nodded, the first contact war that sparked between the turians and humans flashing across her mind.

"The beacon's not the only reason I'm here, Shepard," the turian admitted.

Again Shepard turned slightly to the left, focusing on her Captain. "Nihlus wants to see you in action. He's here to evaluate you."

The Commander's lips curved slightly into a smirk. "Ah. That would explain why I'm always running into him," she replied mildly. The Spectres. Even before Anderson explained the situation, she knew what was going on. The Alliance had been pushing to have one of their own enlisted as a Spectre since they had become a part of the galactic community. It would seem as though she, a simple Commander in the Alliance Navy, had somehow caught the Council's eye.

"..that's why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres," Nihlus finished saying.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised. turian human relations aren't exactly warm."

"Not all turians resent humanity. Some of us see the potential of your species. We see what you have to offer to the rest of the galaxy, and to the Spectres..."

The debriefing was short after that. An emergency transmission was passed on from Joker, and as the three watched the carnage that unfolded before them on the viewing screen, the severity of the mission suddenly became exponentially greater. Shepard took a small ground team, Staff Lieutenant Alenko and the boisterous and eager young Jenkins. And the mission... it was a disaster. They lost Jenkins before they'd hardly covered any ground. As she knelt down and closed his eyes with a light brush of her fingers, she wondered if he would have survived longer if she'd stopped and joined his conversation with Doctor Chakwas outside the comm room.

It seemed fate found it easy to replace him, too. They hadn't fought through more than a few more small waves of Geth before they found another soldier, armored in bright white and pink.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212! Are you the one in charge here?" Even in the midst of battle, the Gunner Chief snapped to attention when the Commander arrived.

"I need a status report, Williams." The mission had so far gone gone entirely against what they had planned and Shepard was wasting no time in trying to keep the thing together.

"Oh man... We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since." Shepard didn't like where this was going.

"And the rest of your squad? What happened to your unit?"

"We tried to go back for the beacon, but we walked straight into an ambush. I don't... I don't think any of the others made it. I'm the only one left." Williams' voice was steady, but the Commander could hear the regret hidden within the solider's words. It brought her back to Akuze: Shepard knew that kind of loss.

"You did everything you could, Williams. None of this is your fault," she felt compelled to say. Williams nodded her affirmative.

"Yes, sir. We held our position as long as we could, but the Geth overwhelmed us."

The extra firepower came in handy as they moved on towards the beacon, especially when they found it missing from the dig site. Of course: nothing was ever easy. The encountered more Geth on the way to the beacon and even found themselves at odds with what looked like some kind of zombie—colonists transformed by the Geth in the most macabre way possible. They had finally understood what the spikes were for, and although the creatures were not difficult to take down, knowing what they had been for made it a particularly gory job. Still, that didn't even come close to how difficult the mission would become.


	2. The Beacon

The Beacon

Kaidan had served with the Alliance Military a long time, but never had he been stationed on a ship with such an impressive reputation. Not only was its Captain one of the most respected and skilled in the Navy, Commander Shepard was also aboard. Everyone had heard about what happened on Akuze. Kaidan didn't mention it out loud, but he was afraid of meeting her. On one hand she sounded like an amazing soldier and he knew the Alliance was an entirely human military organization, but he also had an image of her as a scar-covered, tough Krogan. Maybe he'd been watching too many vids.

When he finally saw her—and he did have the courage to do it despite his reservations—he was surprised at how... beautiful she was. She wasn't like the typical definition of beauty, the long legged, large breasted, models of any man's fantasies. She was a soldier through and through, red hair cut to the chin, fierce determination shining in her green eyes. She carried herself more like a man than a woman, but carried herself with confidence. Perhaps that was what drew him to her: she was different. Had a different kind of beauty.

_Her slight, willow figure danced through his mind. Long, flowing blonde hair seemingly sparkling in the light. Rahna..._

Kaidan blinked and she was gone. Over a decade had passed since Jump Zero and she was still on his mind. The gorgeous biotic angel hadn't left his mind, and try as he might, he couldn't ever find another woman to replace that spot in his heart. They hadn't been romantic, but... he had wanted that. Wanted that more than anything. And now she was gone.

The Staff Lieutenant was drawn out of his thoughts by the helmsman, Joker, and the visiting Spectre. Soon Commander Shepard was on the flight deck as well, and Kaidan carefully kept conversation with her to a minimum. The last thing he needed was to stumble for his words like an awkward fool: even at thirty-two, he could still get knocked flat by a beautiful woman. Not good if that beautiful woman is your commanding officer. When she left for the comm room, he inadvertently let out a sigh of relief. Joker chuckled.

"She's not that intimidating. You should see Anderson when he's pissed." Kaidan glanced curiously at the helmsman, disappointed when he saw the goofy grin on the other man's face. He hadn't really thought Alenko was intimidated by her: he couldn't possibly have been that obvious, could he?

Seemingly sensing the Staff Lieutenant's unease, Joker grinned, turning back to the console to send a report back to Alliance command. "Don't worry, I don't blame you, Alenko. She _is _pretty hot."

Kaidan inexplicably bristled at this comment. "She's not _hot. _She's a damn good soldier, beautiful, brilliant—and our commanding officer." Joker cast an amused look at him, eyebrows arched, but was kind enough not to say anything.

"I'd better go suit up. We're headed down to the colony pretty soon," Alenko said, pushing away from the console, glad for an excuse to leave the pilot behind. Just because he hadn't come up with any other irritatingly observant comments didn't mean he was finished.

"Don't have too much fun with the Commander," Joker teased as he left the flight deck.

"Ha. Ha."

Eden Prime was a mess. In one short mission they lost Jenkins, uncovered a smuggling ring, discovered the Alliance lost almost an entire squad, lost a Spectre and even lost what they'd come there for in the first place: the beacon. To put it simply, Kaidan was _not _looking forward to going back to the Citadel.

The camp had been eerily quiet, save for the sound of gunfire and the mechanical chatter of the Geth in the firefights that broke out. Kaidan expected it to be quiet: he hadn't seen the transmission that came through, but he knew the deal. The mission had already been compromised. As a soldier, he knew that meant one thing; a lot of people had lost their lives. He steeled himself for whatever it was to come. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

"_Ripped right through his shields... he never stood a chance." Kaidan bit his lip, watching the spot where Jenkins had gone down. The Commander stooped down and closed his eyes with the light touch of a gloved hand before moving on, a battlefield funeral. _

"_We'll come back for him," she promised. "Give him a proper burial." _

_It didn't get any easier when they found Nihlus' body. He hadn't been the nicest guy around, but Kaidan was sorry to see him like this. They didn't have time to mourn, though: Cole's contact saw to that. By the time Shepard was done talking with him, getting him to admit to stealing grenades from military shipments, he was sure Ashely was going to put a hole in his head. The amount of venom in her voice had surprised him. It was so much different than their silver tongued Commander, who not only managed to get information from him about Saren, but also managed to deal with their little smuggling ring in one fell swoop. Then again, she was one of the best._

"_Can you believe that-that creep?" Williams was still seething as they took the tram down to the other side of the station-and hopefully towards the beacon and Saren. Shepard remained stoic as ever, but she seemed to silently agree with the Chief as she glanced over at her. Or maybe Kaidan was just imagining things. _

"_Well, at least we can say it won't be happening again. Not for a while, anyway." _

_The answer seemed to satisfy the Chief, and the Commander continued to stare on stoically ahead. Usually at this point Kaidan would have jumped in—replied in Shepard's place at Ashley's barrage of complaints. If it had been any other woman. Shepard was different—she could handle herself. And he liked that._

_He didn't notice them coming to a stop until their new recruit nudged him on the shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Come on, LT."_

_The Commander was already working on diffusing a charge, no doubt left by Saren and his men, when he finally clambered off the tram. Had he really been lost in his thoughts for that long?_

_Quickly he set himself into high gear, looking for other bombs on the site. "It looks like there are three more charges scattered throughout the area, Commander," he said finally, sending the coordinates over to his Commander before she even asked. _

_She nodded curtly. "We need to get those disabled asap. Alenko, you deal with the charges while Williams and I take out any enemy targets. Move out."_

_Again, the team managed to sweep across all enemy forces and quickly disable the charges before the spaceport was destroyed. When Ashely and Shepard had finally picked off the last of the Geth, it seemed like things were starting to turn around, in fact. Finally they found the beacon, sitting right in front of their noses on the dock, glowing with some strange power that almost looked biotic._

"_This is amazing. Actual working Prothean technology. Unbelievable!" Kaidan breathed, staring in awe._

"_It wasn't doing anything like this when they dug it up," Ashley noted. "Something must have activated it." She turned away and walked towards Shepard as she finished radioing Joker. "What do you think it could mean?" she asked, watching the N7 carefully. Behind her, Kaidan slowly approached the becaon, studying it. He wasn't usually one to stick his nose into things he shouldn't have, but it was so fascinating that he was drawn in like a moth to a flame. _

"_I don't know. Hopefully the Council can figure something out. We-" she happened to glance up at the beacon just as her Lieutenant got a little too close to the beacon. As the glow that enveloped the beacon stretched out like arms to grab him, Shepard as shoving Ashley aside and pushing him out of the way before it was too late. _

_The biotic hit the ground and rolled onto his side just in time to see the Commander rising slightly from the dock as if she was held up by invisible strings. He went to grab her but Ashley pulled him back. "Don't touch her, it's too dangerous!" He could only watch on in horror as she floated, suspended in midair, before being suddenly and unceremoniously dropped like a rag doll._

Hours later, after they had brought Shepard onto the Normandy and to the med bay, Kaidan was perched once again on one of the unoccupied beds in the med bay. Doctor Chakwas had finally had enough of his hovering and shooed him away for some sleep hours before, but as soon as he'd had his perscribed two hours, he was right back in the med bay. The silver haired woman just shook her head and admitted defeat, settling down at her desk. About an hour later, Shepard finally started to stir.

Kaidan was up immediately. "Doctor? Doctor Chakwas? I think she's waking up."

Shepard looked blearily up at the Lieutenant before turning slightly as the doctor came into view. "You had us all worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?" Somehow, even though she'd spent years as a military doctor, the woman had a calming, maternal voice.

Shepard grumbled a bit, clutching her head as she sat up in bed, looking around the medbay. "Like the morning after shore leave," she replied groggily. "How long was I out?"

"About fifteen hours. Something happened down there with the beacon., I think."  
>Shepard's eyes became two wide emeralds before she composed herself: fifteen hours?<p>

"It was my fault," Kaidan added hastily without thinking. "I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way." He bit his lip, ready to take responsibility for his blinder, but Shepard shook her head.

"No. You had no way to know what would happen," she declared sharply.

Despite himself and the circumstances, Kaidan felt a small smile cross his face at her words. He had honestly been afraid he'd be tossed out the nearest airlock for what he'd done, but no. Shepard had by all rights defended him.

"Actually," Chakwas added, "we don't even know what set it off. Unfortunately, we'll never get the chance to find out."

Shepard blinked. "What do you mean? What happened to the beacon?"  
>"The beacon. It, uh... exploded. A system overload, maybe. The blast knocked you out cold: Williams and I carried you back here to the ship."<p>

A faint smile played across the Commander's lips, and Kaidan felt his heart skip a beat.

"I appreciate it."

The conversation moved onto what exactly happened during Shepard's encounter with the beacon. From what she was saying, Kaidan felt worse and worse about putting her in that situation to begin with. He didn't even have a chance to say anything about it or apologise when the Captain came into the med bay with his own questions for her. Kaidan saluted and left, but couldn't get back to his station just yet. So he hung around the mess until Shepard finally left as well, the door sliding shut behind her.

"Commander, I..I'm glad to see you're okay. Losing Jenkins was hard on the crew and I'm glad we didn't lose you too."

"Things were pretty rough down there," she replied and Kaidan nodded.  
>"Yeah, you never do get used to seeing dead civillians. Doesn't seem right somehow, but at least you were able to stop Saren from wiping out the whole colony."<p>

"Well hey now, I couldn't have done it without you. Williams too."

"Yeah. Still I wish would have done something for Jenkins, you know?"  
>Shepard nodded solemnly. "It's always hard when you see a Marine die so young."<p>

Kaidan bit his lip again. Although Shepard was usually the definition of cool headed Commander, her shoulders were now slightly slumped and he suddenly felt like he'd gone too far in bringing up what happened on Eden Prime. Trying to pick up the pieces of the conversation, he managed a small smile. "Well, I hear Ashley got reassigned to the Normandy. At least something good came of this."

Thankfully his plan worked and the corners of Shepard's mouth played up into a small smile. "Yeah, definitely. She'll be great to have on the team." She paused. "How long were you in the med bay?"

The question caught Kaidan slightly off guard and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I was there for quite a while before Doctor Chakwas pushed me out. Said I had to sleep or I couldn't go back in. Slept for a couple hours then I was right back in there...why?"

Shepard's smile widened slightly. "Just... curious. We'll be headed to the Citadel soon. You should probably catch up on some of that sleep. Don't worry, I don't plan on being knocked cold any time soon," she teased gently.

The biotic could feel a blush creeping onto his cheeks. "I, uh.. yeah. I hope not." Shepard raised her eyebrows and he mentally kicked himself for being so stupid. When she'd excused herself and gone up to the CIC, Kaidan was still mentally berating himself over his slip up. This was why he didn't want to talk to her one on one in the first place: he knew he'd slip up and look like an idiot in front of her. And this was supposed to be a _job _not some military dating service. He sighed and rubbed his face roughly. Maybe he did need to catch up on his sleep.


End file.
